When I was a nipper, I would like nothing more when we visited the seaside than spending my parents’ money on the funfair rides. Sea and sand are OK to look at, but I like water in tea, and I am no beach lizard.
If you live in or are visiting Kaliningrad, you can get your funfair fix at the Youth amusement park, which is a spacious and well-equipped amusement park across the road from the Upper Lake.
Recently, on my birthday, I was smitten by the regressive desire to go oscillating on the park’s big wheel. This is quite unlike me, as I gave up heights in preference for the sure-footedness of good old terra firma many moons ago. But it was my birthday, I had eaten an ice cream by the lake, and the wheel, which I had often regarded with curiosity whilst partaking of beer at the front of the Mercor Hotel, must have said something to me today like, “you’d better do it now, before you get too old!”
Kaliningrad Ferris wheel at Youth Park
I have never argued with a Ferris wheel before, have you? And today was no exception. But had I have been inclined to do so nothing would have come of it, because Kaliningrad’s big wheel is not one of those fast-moving fairground attractions where you sit with your friends suspended in chairs and when the wheel stops at the top your friend begins to rock it and is no longer your friend anymore, it is, in its construction and spirit of revolution, more akin to the London Eye ~ big, solid, friendly and sedate.
Nevertheless, at 50 metres it is high enough for me, and as we stood on the departure platform waiting for one of the empty cars to descend and allow us to board, I caught myself thinking yet again how unlike me this is, even on my birthday.
Kaliningrad Ferris Wheel at Youth Park
The cars roll around at a gentle pace but even so you clamber quickly aboard goaded to do so by the Imp of the Perverse who is whispering in your ear, “Quick, imagine your trouser leg getting caught on the edge of the car; how embarrassing that would be, to go hopping off towards the end of the platform!”
Mick Hart about to board Kaliningrad’s Ferris wheel
This thought, or thoughts similar, have you jumping aboard in no time. The car lurches and swings in response to your opposing momentum, but it is alright: the thing seems sturdy enough, and before you can say ‘motion sickness’ you have plonked yourself down on the bench seat.
Olga Hart not at all frightened on Kaliningrad’s Ferris wheel
The wheel’s cars are in fact quite spacious and would, I imagine, hold six people quite comfortably. The cars have glass doors, so you are fully enclosed, and the wide windows offer an awesome and spectacular view not just of Kaliningrad from an aerial perspective but of the steel lattice-work fabric, nuts, bolts and bearings from which the revolving contraption is made.
View of Kaliningrad’s Ferris wheel and Kaliningrad itself from one of the wheel’s cars
As we levelled out at a 45-degree angle to the ground, the angle of the dangle incidentally causing you to feel more vulnerable than when the car reaches the summit, this is when both the wheel’s superstructure and park layout below are at their most dramatic; and then, slowly, very slowly, as the car begins to rise, Kaliningrad in all its (as I have said before) green glory and contrasting urban extensiveness folds quietly out beneath you inciting a landmark-spotters epiphany.
Looking out across the once Königsberg district of Maraunenhof from Kaliningrad Ferris wheel
Away with apprehension and out with the camera, I get some fairly good shots of the wheel itself and some admiral ones of the city. Yes, the photographs would have been better had I come prepared with a proper camera instead of relying on the mobile phone’s, but spur of the moment decisions respect nothing but opportunism so, as I did not plan ahead, I have to be contented.
Kaliningrad Upper Lake
Kaliningrad boating lake
The view from the wheel’s highest point is nothing short of breathtaking, and for 200 rubles a ride (£1.99), presuming you do not own a microlight, this is the next best way to reach the dizzy heights, in other words to see the city of Kaliningrad as you have never seen it before.
Next on the bucket list is a spin on the wheel as dusk settles, when the wheel and the cityscape are bedecked with illumination.
Whereabouts
The Youth Park of Culture and Recreation is located in the Leningrad district of Kaliningrad at 3 Telman Street, opposite the Upper Lake.
My wife was recently thrilled to discover that her birthday fell on the same day as Königsberg’s. On the 1st September 2020 Königsberg turned 756. Olga felt relieved and grateful that Königsberg was considerably older than her, whilst I feel like I am catching up with Königsberg every day that goes by.
On hearing about this coincidence of birthdays, I suggested that we show our respects to the old city on which Kaliningrad is founded by travelling to what was once the cultural and spiritual centre of Königsberg, the cathedral, and wish Königsberg a happy birthday.
Olga bought some flowers to mark the occasion, a pretty basket display, which she placed at the gate to Immanuel Kant’s tomb at the side of the 14th century cathedral. We then walked to the front of the cathedral, noting as we did that one section was undergoing renovation and that the cathedral parvis had been re-laid with cobbles in which a twin section of serpentine tram track had been sunk, thus creating a more accurate picture of how it once would have looked. Other improvements ~ some complete, some still work in progress ~ also caught our eye.
It was a beautiful day, as our photographs show; one of those early autumn days which brings people out in droves but winds them down into relaxation mode. It was not difficult, therefore, to get someone to take a photograph of us next to the model of Kneiphof Island, one of the three towns in the middle ages that comprised the city of Königsberg and the area in which the cathedral stands today.
This was all well and good, but we still had not yet toasted Königsberg.
Happy Birthday Königsberg
By and by, we found what we considered to be the perfect location on the elevated approach to the cathedral entrance. With my large vodka flask to hand, a kind and useful gift from our neighbours last Christmas, we accomplished our objective: Happy Birthday Königsberg!
Mick & Olga Hart: Happy Birthday Königsberg
Having respected history and become a small part of it ourselves, we took a slow stroll to the river bridge for more photographs in front of the Königsberg Stock Exchange and of the now complete Planet Ocean Exposition globe across the other side of the water.
There was one last visit to make. As we were in Victor Ryabinin territory, we decided to make the emotionally difficult but appropriate pilgrimage to the door of the building where Victor’s studio had been located. As Olga said, had Victor been here today he would have been with us and would have been proud to have toasted Königsberg’s birthday.
The building where the studio used to be is under scaffolding at the moment. We stood at the open entrance, and I saluted him and the building for all those memorable times we had spent together here.
Mick Hart at entrance to stairwell leading to the former Studio of artist Victor Ryabinin, Königsberg-Kaliningrad 2020
From Victor’s, we decided we would wend our way homewards via Kaliningrad’s famous war memorial. To do this we would have to cross over Dvukhyarusny Bridge. I hope that this bridge is preserved, as it is a landmark of the city. I love walking across the old buckled steel plate pathway that runs along the side of this bridge and gazing out across the Pregel River for the unique perspective it offers.
Dvukhyarusny Bridge, Kaliningrad 2020
Crossing over the busy road on the other side, it is possible to escape the traffic by following a section of road leading to the war memorial where traffic is restricted. This road climbs a hill between an avenue of mature trees with Victory Park on the left-hand side.
The Monument to 1200 Guardsmen is an awe-inspiring sight. Set in a vast semi-circular walled and paved space, a central obelisk, its ascending sections carved and embossed with WWII battle scenes, rises triumphantly into the sky; an ‘eternal flame’ burns in its foreground and the whole ensemble is flanked by two larger than life figural groups depicting soldiers charging into battle.
Obelisk at the Monument to 1200 Guardsmen, Kaliningrad, Russia, September 2020
Olga Hart, Eternal Flame, Kaliningrad
Olga Hart at 1200 Guardsmen Monument
We had our photographs taken here on the day of our wedding, 31 August 2001, and were fortunate enough to find two willing Kaliningradians to snap some photos today.
Olga and Mick Hart at 1200 Guardsmen Monument, Kaliningrad, September 2020
Not quite sure whether I had toasted Königsberg sufficiently, when I arrived back home I opened a bottle of beer and toasted it again ~ Happy Birthday Königsberg!
Published: 18 July 2020 on the first anniversary of Victor Ryabinin’s death
Victor Ryabinin died on 18 July 2019
For those who knew him well, it has been a difficult 12 months. The first 12 months after someone dear passes away always is. There are so many occasions that memory will not let go of, everything becomes a commemorative anniversary of the last time, and it is virtually impossible not to fall victim to the ‘this time last year’ syndrome.
As the anniversary of Victor’s death closed in, it has also been impossible not to fall under the insidious spell of that morbid countdown: viz, this time last year Victor had only four weeks left to live … It is a macabre thought is it not, that last 60 seconds of life ticking inexorably away and then nothing? Not just the physical man himself gone but, as Leonard Cohen so eloquently puts it, “that tangle of matter and ghost”. A lifetime lost in a second. A unique loss of personality, thoughts, talent, experience, good nature, kindness, humanity. It is, indeed, a morbid thought, but as a friend of mine pragmatically said about death, “Well, you can’t stop it, can you?”
There is nothing much longer than eternity, but notwithstanding in the past 12 months those of us who were fortunate enough to be counted among Victor’s friends and those whom he taught and mentored have been just as busy preserving his memory as we have been cherishing it and missing him.
Book celebrating Victor Ryabinin’s work
As well as my blog, which is dedicated to Victor Ryabinin, to his artistic talent, to the magic that he found in and brought to Königsberg-Kaliningrad and to the man himself, one of Victor’s closest friends, Marina Simkina, herself an artist, has been working with writer and journalist Boris Nisnevich to bring to fruition a book about the life and work of this remarkable man: a thematically related text with essays, personal recollections, interviews, letters and poems which taken together speak of the rich legacy that Victor has bequeathed in his paintings, assemblages, collages and diaries and, for those of us who knew him personally, in the light that his sincerity, goodwill, open nature and profound interest in everything he heard or saw brought into our lives.
On the first anniversary of Victor’s death, I have added another article to the pages of my blog contributed by our friend Stanislov, whom Victor introduced us to shortly before he passed away
Catalogue of Victor Ryabinin’s work
Stas, as we know him, is actively involved in a project which will hopefully see the canon of Victor Ryabinin’s artistic work and his collection of Königsberg ‘relics’ housed and displayed in a permanent exhibition here in Kaliningrad. He also hopes to catalogue Victor’s work and produce a definitive version in print of the extraordinary talent of this man whose self-genre as Königsberg’s art-historian captured, celebrated and ultimately cast him as the spirit of the ruined city he had spent his life divining ~ the very Spirit of Königsberg.
Victor Ryabinin’s love affair with the interconnectivity of Königsberg’s past and Kaliningrad’s present, the surface paradox of two cultures hammered together in war but mysteriously wed by time and destiny, was as devotional as it was unconditional. For him, both transition and movement were seamless; it was the place itself that ‘drew people in’ as it had drawn him in.
Victor’s childhood impressions and art-historian perspective surpassed that of mere academia ~ he lived and breathed Königsberg. It was not a lifestyle choice; it was made for him; it was predestined. The symbiotic relationship that he formed with this special, this unique place, as he called the Königsberg.-Kaliningrad continuum, continually reminded him that his soul existed in two cultures, both Russian and German, and as much as he enjoyed anywhere else he intuitively knew he belonged nowhere else. He could not precisely say why, ‘I cannot explain this magic’, but as a child of Königsberg’s ruins he instinctively knew “this is my city”.
His city, represented symbolically through the artistic fusion of his childhood memories, the interaction between Gothic ruins and Hoffman’s Gothic fantasy, transcended time and place, engendering philosophical interpretations on a universal scale. His enduring belief in the insolubility of the past’s effect on the present and of existence viewed as a fantastic web of interconnectivity may suggest that whilst he had a definite sense of place and his place in it, he was also a child of the universe, but if so he was a prodigy.
In memory of Victor Ryabinin
The oft-cited opinion of those who were close to him, that he exhibited an almost childlike fascination in everything new that he saw or heard, was not a slight on his character but a character trait to be envious of. For the majority of people, interest, as with every other human faculty, slips further and further away from us the older we become, but not so with Victor, who remained alert, fascinated, enthralled to the last. Even in the latter days of his life, when in hindsight, by recourse to photographs of that time, he appeared discernibly older and more frail, he never lost his curiosity, he never grew old as others grow old, giving up his zest for life only when life itself decided that the time had come for him to paint his last picture, make his last entry in his pictorial diary and drink his last cognac with friends.
In the shadow of death and even more desperately in its gloomy, memory-filled aftermath, we rake among the embers not of the life that has passed, the life that has been extinguished, but in what remains of our left-behind lives, in hope of consolation.
But my consolation in Victor’s death lies in the certain knowledge that whilst we grieve for ourselves, we have no real need to grieve for him, for he has returned to the self-same spot where it all began. He is a child again in the ruins of Königsberg. His spirit has gone home. He is now a part of that history which so fascinated and clung to him from the moment of his birth. It is my belief that it never let go; he was just given to us on loan; and he drew us into Königsberg as he himself had been drawn in.
If you do not believe me just listen to and read the testimonials of those who knew him and what they have to say ~ his students, friends and colleagues. Through their words and their impressions, they seek to understand the mystical aura with which Victor was endowed. We may never comprehend it entirely, but we share one thing in common which is a sense of pride and privilege that in this ephemeral but interconnected world it was fortunately predetermined that our paths should cross with his.
We shall miss him always, forget him never.
Victor Ryabinin died on 18 July 2020 Forever Königsberg
Our second cultural day in a row (yesterday we attended an unusual art exhibition) found us heading off for a guided tour around a flat that had belonged to a Königsberg merchant in the early 20th century. I had heard of this flat from our dear friend Victor Ryabinin ~ artist, philosopher, historian (sadly now deceased) ~ who had, as with all things Königsberg, stimulated my curiosity by informing us that the flat in question had been preserved, and restored where necessary, in all its original glory.
The flat we were going to visit today is located at
11-1 Krasnaya Street, Kaliningrad. The official name of the venue is simply but
effectively ‘Apartment Museum’. A century ago, it was the home of merchant and
grocery store owner, Gustav Grossmann, and his family. As the advertising
leaflet boldly and honestly claims, the authentic interior allows you to
‘travel back a hundred years’ and experience life ‘as a citizen of Eastern
Prussia’.
Public interest in and success of the project had prompted the exhibition owner to invest in a retro café on the site of Grossmann’s original store, which is located in the same building as the merchant’s flat, and it was here that we were rendezvousing with friend and Königsberg historian Stanislav Konovalov, known to us as Stas.
The café, which is housed in a corner section of the historic apartment building, extends from the main structure out towards the pavement. The entrance to Grossmann’s apartment is recessed, away from the pavement, a small flagstoned area leading to the front door, and can therefore be easily missed. However, the café signage does a wonderful job, calling your attention to a building of stature, which is distinctive and old-world gentrified thanks predominantly to the large show window on the ground floor and above it on the first and second floors the unusual arched windows.
The lower window has been fitted out with shelving and, even before we climbed the small flight of steps leading to the café entrance, it excited us to see a variety of bygone items beckoning us inside. The artefacts displayed included, but were not limited to, kitchen pans, clothes’ irons, ceramic pots, oil lamps and the stock in trade of antique emporiums in this part of the world, the ubiquitous German stein.
Gustav Grossmann Cafe, Kaliningrad
Anyone obsessed with the past could tell, from the demeanour of the building and the items displayed in the window, that you would not be disappointed when you stepped inside. The interior of the building has been subject to a complete and comprehensive retro makeover, with so much by way of antiques and collectables adorning shelves, festooned on the walls, cuddling in cabinets, swinging from the ceiling and dotted here and there that ~ as it is with the nature of such places ~ it was impossible at first glance and even ten minutes afterwards to take everything in. Certain features, however, made their mark and stayed there. Behind the front counter, for example ~ a long counter and one of impressive height ~ wall-to-ceiling shelving has been erected, and this shelving, consisting as it does of different sized compartments, the top section reserved for larger items such as a pair of antique radios, is occupied by a mixture of vintage and antique objects rubbing shoulders with the modern accoutrements that are vital for running a business like this, such as branded cups and saucers, selections of teas, different kinds of coffee varieties and so on. The café till, which may be modern, appears on the customer side of the counter as though it is made of wood, whilst the coffee machine, all made of shining chrome, is, in shape and appearance, an icon of the 1950s. Indeed, not everything in the café was what we English would call Edwardian or of early 20th century origin: the radio in the window, which has most likely been fitted with an electronic player, was post WWII, although the music it aired pre-dated it as late 1920s or 30s.
Window Seat, Apartment Museum, Kaliningrad
As with the interior décor no expense in detail had been spared with regard to the café’s furniture, all of which has a heritage background, from the open-sided armchair beside the counter to the two armchairs and circular salon table in front of the window. As these chairs were occupied by patrons, who were studiously observing an unwritten code of conduct, which is, or so it would seem, to adhere to a kind of library silence in the presence of the past, we took up temporary residence in the only seats available, Olga on a dining chair with a Rococo-style splat and myself on an interesting settle, which was comfortably upholstered and had, at either end, small fitted cabinets with carved, pierced fronts.
Partaking of tea in Apartment Museum Cafe ~ Königsberg
Tea was served in two dish-shaped china cups with matching saucers, backstamped Konig… . We could not make out the exact wording, but we felt certain that the proprietor of this establishment would not have trusted us with an original Königsberg tea service.
Vintage china tea cup, Gustav Grossmann Cafe, Königsberg
More or less observing the silence that everyone else was bound to, we drank our tea and continued our visual assessment, taking in the various enamel-fronted advertising signs that no antique-oriented premise should ever be without and recognising three wall-mounted cast-iron signs as tram destination plates, each bearing the number of a specific tram and the Königsberg districts which each tram had served. These distinctive and, I should imagine, highly sought-after Königsberg mementoes, which remembered the route that specific trams took, I had only seen once before and that was in the art studio of our late friend Victor Ryabinin.
Apartment Museum Cafe sells antiques
Alas, these plaques were not for sale, but some of the items were. There were three large wood and glass display cabinets containing all manner of small antique pieces ~ ceramics, tableware, relics from Königsberg ~ as well as some larger items, such as a silver-topped walking cane and a silk top hat, all of which could be purchased. Both Olga and I took an interest in the two-tier, Art Nouveau plant stand, which was slightly more unusual than the standard fare, but as the asking price was considerably higher than that which I would normally expect to pay for a similar piece in England, our interest remained just that.
We finished our tea and now that Stas had arrived and wanted a smoke, we joined the other interested parties who were waiting outside on the damp and chilly streets for the venue to open.
As 11am came and went Stas took the initiative to ring the doorbell. And seconds later the door was opened by a tall lady appropriately dressed Edwardian style, that is in a high-necked blouse and long woolen dress fastened and highlighted around the waist by an enamel-buckled cinch belt.
We were shown in to the communal hallway of the
building, a spacious entrance hall with a flight of six or seven steps to the
ground-floor landing, beyond which could be seen a rather imposing wooden railed
staircase.
The door to the time capsule we were about to enter was mid-brown wood, with long vertical paneling , the upper section letting in light through a series of small windows, the glass inside being of the wire-reinforced variety. Our little entourage filed one by one inside and as we passed ~ me gratefully ~ from the 21st century into the past, I pointed out the doorbell to Olga, which was housed in a metal plate wrought into a typical and prepossessing Art Nouveau design.
Art Nouveau doorbell, Apartment Museum, Kaliningrad
The corridor inside the flat was rather narrow and, indeed, we were soon to discover that this merchant’s flat was of no great proportion anywhere. Naturally, the space was made considerably less by the unusual volume of people that it now occupied, all at once milling and jostling as they tried to divest themselves of their outer winter garments to place in temporary storage within the deep, but not very wide, cloakroom reserved for this purpose.
Naturally, the initial impact of the transition from now to then, from new to old, would be better served with less people present, but ventures such as these need to be administered and maintained, and I would anticipate that the fee for a private viewing might prove cost-prohibitive. Nevertheless, I did find room to reflect on how reserved and dignified Mr Grossmann’s hallway was, with its black and white tiled floor, tall dark doors fitted with ornate and heavy brass handles and its wonderful bygone telephone, equipped with open cradle and sporting a large pair of bells.
Open-plan design
When we were all partially disrobed, so to speak, we were led into the living quarters, which was fundamentally one large room divided into two halves by the simple decorative effect of wooden vertical frames and pierced and moulded fretwork where the uprights meet the ceiling.
The door through which we had entered had taken us effectively into the living room/study. In the corner of the room, in front of the window, was a desk with shelves and drawers in all the usual places and with more incorporated in the elevated section of a glazed cabinet super structure. The desk held various interesting and curious pieces, including the first typewriter I had seen manufactured by Mercedes Benz. Next to the desk there was a large double-fronted glazed cabinet, containing many antique artefacts, and next to that a small sofa and copper-topped circular table.
This table was one for us. It had a built-in standard lamp, with a large bell-shaped fabric lampshade centred above it, c.1920s. Other objects of interest in this part of the room included a small, circular gramophone table complete with horn-type gramophone, a very nice carved and stuffed-over seat corner chair, used here as a desk chair, and various wall-hung paintings and antique ornaments.
Mr Grumpy (photograph withheld)
One thing that Olga had not forewarned me about was that Stas would be translating as the guide spoke, and Stas, in turn, had not been forewarned that Mr Grumpy was present. Mr Grumpy took umbrage at Stas’ mumblings in English, and even after Stas had explained his intent and purpose, Mr G could not quite permit himself the liberty of graciousness, turning every now and then to scowl at us, until eventually he slid away. At first I felt myself lean charitably in his direction, after all had not he paid for the tour like everyone else? ~ so why would he want to be distracted by Stas’ infernal utterances? But by and by I noticed that he was pretty much dissatisfied with everybody and everything. Perhaps his wife had dragged him there when he should have been in the bar? (If that had been the case, then it was perfectly understandable!)
Gustav Grossmann? No, Mick Hart at Gustav’s desk!
The guide’s talk continued for some time but the duration was necessary as we were not after all in the Palace of Versailles but in a very small, lower middle-class apartment, which, had the guide whipped us through, would have no doubt had Mr Grumpy demanding his entrance fee back!
Judging by the reaction of the rest of the group, with the omission of Mr Grumpy, the guide’s efforts appeared to meet with universal appreciation. Even with my sparse knowledge of Russian I could tell that she was a good speaker, instigating and maintaining interest and adding to it, from time to time, by drawing our attention to certain curious items, which she passed around for people to hold and examine, asking if anyone knew what they had been used for in their previous life. This technique was adopted throughout the tour, and, I am proud to say, I got most of the items right, except for a small pagoda-style, black-lacquered miniature house which, it transpired, had been a pet sanctuary for crickets, no less. As they say, and quite rightly so, you learn something new every day.
The second half of the room into which we had first been shown functioned as the dining area, the taper-legged table and simple but appealing early 20th century chairs occupying centre place. Behind the table, set against the wall, stood a typical Könisbergian lump of a sideboard. I do not mean to sound disparaging, since these heavy, massy pieces of furniture typically adorned with heraldic and armorial appliques and supported on chunky ball and claw feet or, as in this example, large lion pads, solicit the Gothic in me, but I fully understand that their dominating presence is not, as we English are wont to say, everyone’s cup of tea.
Apartment Museum magnificent fireplace/stove
In this instance, however, it was the fireplace that got the better. Here we had a typical German glazed-tile fire-come-boiler affair ~ a masonry heater ~ distinguished above any I had seen hitherto, with the possible exception of one very ornate example, which may or may not be original, which resides within a hotel bar on a picturesque stretch of the river a few kilometers from Königsberg.
The fireplace we were privy to today owed its impressive status to its two-tiered format, and the fact that the decorative tiling was taken up from floor to ceiling, the top being surmounted with a rather elaborate carved and scrolled finial.
The metal grate doors at the lower level of the boiler also expressed an Art Nouveau intricacy, the artistic quality of which I have not witnessed elsewhere in this region.
Overall, the furnished and decorative note struck in Mr Grossmann’s flat was a mellow and conservative one, possessing and conveying an unaffected dignity. Towards this consummation the doors, all of which exhibited the same uniformity of design, added not a little. In fact, they stamped an authority of social standing on the nature of this abode, their dark-wood, tall and sober character surmounted by a dignifying architectural gable pediment.
Crotchless bloomers
The next stop on the itinerary was the bedroom. It was not at all very spacious and the two wooden single beds pushed together to make a pseudo double bed allowed for nothing more than a cabinet and a dressing table. The most remarkable bygone in this room was the mannequin, or rather the female underwear in which it was dressed, of which the principal feature was the long pantaloons. These, our guide revealed, were split-crotched in the most significant manner, which, my wife concluded, explained why men in the early 20th century made such an eager audience when young ladies danced the can-can.
Apartment Museum guide, Kaliningrad
You see what I mean when I say, ‘you learn something
new every day’.
We could not all get into the confines of the bed chamber, so some of us were necessitated to undertake our viewing from the hall, along which we then walked, as instructed by our guide, to the kitchen.
Nowhere does bygone domestic life impress itself more contrastively than in the kitchen setting. The kitchen décor of our modern age and the implements we use therein would seem so thoroughly futuristic from an early 20th century point of view, and also more recently for those who lived in the 1940s, as to make them impossible to envision. In years gone by kitchen items were heavy, solid-state, screwed, riveted, mechanical; they were constructed from metal and glazed stoneware, cast and wrought iron, and they were obviously made to last, which is why they are still with us. A few people aspire when they behold kitchens of yester-year to recreate something similar in their own home as a retro statement, but few people ~ only those of the most stalwart nature with a near to obsessive love of obsolescent times ~ are willing to go the whole hog, completely renouncing smooth, easy-to-clean surfaces and modern, time-saving kitchen utensils [see Art Exhibition Kaliningrad] for their more quirky but difficult to use and maintain predecessors.
Early 20th century kitchen utensils
In Mr Grossmann’s flat, the kitchen was quite small. Too many cooks was certainly not an option. The kitchen stove, or range, ruled the visual roost, it was, after all, an indispensable piece of home-living equipment, in this case cast iron, the front beige and green-enamel tiled and the whole raised on sculpted, ornate cabriole legs.
Above the cooker there was a row of hooks containing various kitchen utensils and, on the wall, cream and white enamel back-plates with integral hooks on which hung various straining, stirring and other culinary implements. The back plates to these utensil holders are lovingly shaped and are much sought after today by discerning collectors and interior decorators. Enamel products were, of course, the kitchen equipment stalwarts of their day, and another nice example, one of which I had seen before in Victor Ryabinin’s studio, was a three-compartmentalised kitchen-cleaning substance holder, which included a slot for a product well-known in England, Persil, the name of which, along with others, is printed on the surface.
Slider-controlled enamel kitchen shopping list reminder, c1910-20
One item that I was not acquainted with was an early refrigerator. The appliance looked like a tall, square, solid wooden box, but when the lid was lifted the top section could be seen to contain a perforated metal basket. The cabinet space below held the provisions whilst the ice above cooled the interior. A simple mechanism indeed, but I suppose it must have worked.
The kitchen was large enough to accommodate a dresser,
with glazed cabinets to the upper middle section flanked by two enclosed
cabinets, in which an assortment of curious contraptions were displayed, and
the storage space offered by this piece of furniture was augmented by a small
larder in the corner of the room, containing a stimulating jamboree of bottles,
tins and jars, many with ageing contents.
The last room on the inventory was the toilet and bathroom, and this indispensable facility was to be found on the left just inside the door. You’ve just got to love a proper toilet, being one with a high-rise cistern with a chain and porcelain hand-pull, of German heritage of course.
Gustav Grossmann’s toilet requisites
Whether large country estate, stately home or a relatively small apartment such as this one, the question I always ask myself at the conclusion of my visit is not did it interest me but did it have the desired effect, namely during the time I spent there was I there at the time and in a different time at the same time? The answer in the case of Kaliningrad’s (Königsberg’s) Museum Apartment is Yes. Thank you Apartment Museum and thank you Mr Grossmann!
